Are you SWAT or NOT?

[Family]

Disclaimer: I'm not making a call on if being either SWAT or NOT is better or worse (both can be fun/wrongbadfun/nofun).

Sometimes:
The defenders hold the enemies’ attention, the strikers damage targets without being hit, leaders make the rest of the group better at what they do, and controllers make life infuriating for enemies.

Sometimes not:
Defender: Well I'm the fighter so I hit a soldier *boom* take that!
Armchair: No don't do that you need to mark the boss to hold his aggro.
Defender: You said it’s better to not be outnumbered, 'sides I already rolled.
Armchair: Okay but we've gone over this before, lock on to the BBEG and hold him till we clear the rif-raf.
Striker: Yeah this is how you do it! *Skadoosh* against the BBEG. Drat I just miss.
Armchair: If you just waited a round Defender could have provide you with flanking there.
Controller: That's okay because the best part about being a wizard is doing massive damage to a single target. I hit the BBEG, Huzzah!
Armchair: Right, let's just talk strategy for a moment. I think that wha..
Leader: While I agree with you, we're in the middle of combat let's just do this thing, after all with a role like Leader I should be the one making plans eh? *wink*.
Everyone: You need to buff me.
Leader: I'm taking a glory moment here and am buffing myself; I'll tank the BBEG so that everyone can do what they want.
Armchair: *sighs/rollseyes/rollsdice* You see?
DM: That's right everyone can do what they want, including the beasties, it's their turn now bwahaha. But we have to wrap this up; man did this fight go on didn't it?

So how does your party roll?

 

[SWAT]

Yes, yes I am. Since 2002, actually.

 

[jdrakeh]

It depends on the game (not the system, mind you, but the actual game) being played.

For example, if I'm playing in a published D&D adventure for any edition, probably not SWAT. Most published adventures are not deadly serious or even believable, which makes SWAT pointless, as it seems to produce no more or less combat 'wins' than simply running in through the front gate waving weapons in the air does.

Likewise, in most published adventures, player combat tactics have little (if any) bearing on charcter death rate, resource expenditure, and so fourth. There's this crazy little clan of 'D&D as reality simulator' fans who claim differently but, in more than fifteen years of playing D&D, I've seen precious few published adventures wherein carefully planning combats makes a single bit of difference in the module as written.

There are exceptions*, of course, and a DM can always add a lot of consequences for bad tactics that aren't present in the module (e.g., alerting other nearby enemies, etc). Which brings me to the when I do play SWAT.

I play SWAT in heavily modified published adventures or homebrew adventures with a DM-applied emphasis on high mortality rates and limited healing or resurrection magic. Or, outside of D&D, in systems that emphasize those realities by default. For instance, IME, approaching a HarnMaster combat or an Ars Magica combat like a standard D&D combat (even with tactics), will typically end in a TPK if you let the dice fall where they may.

*Several Paizo adventures in the Pathfinder series stick out in my mind, as do old AD&D tournment modules (although those still had plenty of stuff that could never be circumvented as written, regardless of how clever the players were).

 

[Corsair]

There are exceptions*, of course, and a DM can always add a lot of consequences for bad tactics that aren't present in the module (e.g., alerting other nearby enemies, etc).

Wait, so you're saying that if a module doesn't say "other creatures in the dungeon are allowed to make listen checks to possibly hear combat, as stated in the PHB. You should probably consider common sense when running this module," then it's the module's fault?

 

[Particle_Man]

I was NOT before, but with 4e, I am learning to SWAT (we all are, but some have experience with SWAT before).

 

[jdrakeh]

Wait, so you're saying that if a module doesn't say "other creatures in the dungeon are allowed to make listen checks to possibly hear combat, as stated in the PHB. You should probably consider common sense when running this module," then it's the module's fault?

That was a bad example on my part, though it is true in some cases and, frankly, I've found that there are a lot of DMs who need this kind of instruction (primarily new DMs). Assuming that the DM running the module is familiar enough to 'wing' tactical aspects of an adventure without any advice whatsoever is absolutely a failure of the module unless it expliclitly says something like "Not for novice DMs" in big, bold, letters on the cover someplace.

A better example is that a great many adventure modules don't describe any kind of attack plan or organization for monsters that are supposed to be intelligent and (often) tactical, according to the module text. Again, this is absolutely a failure of the module unless it expliclitly says something like "Actual tactics of adversaries not described herein!" in big, bold, letters on the cover someplace.

Assuming that a reader is either a tactical genius or somebody with multiple years of D&D play under their belt is a bad assumption. Designing a module around that assumption makes it a complete failure for anybody whom that assumption does not apply to. Only if the module has some very obvious disclaimer about being designed for a specific level of player skill does the fault transfer to the consumer who fails to meet that requirement.

There are modules that don't make these fallacious assumptions and that do attempt to provide notes on tactics and such for novice DMs or non-tactical thinkers. For me, the better module is the one that attempts to cover all aspects of play thoroughly, rather than the one that tries to half-ass it based on assumptions that are unlikely to apply to all consumers.

 

[blargney the second]

Yeah, not so much in our groups. I'd love to be part of a well-oiled machine...

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Granted we've only played one real session of 4e in my main group, but we seem to be getting there, especially due to SWAT-mindset in our SWSE game and that we've an ex-military guy as one of the players who rolled a Dwarf Warlord for his PC.

As the D&D DM put it, 3e was more like NBA basketball where it's more about the individual superstar while 4e is more akin to college basketball where they play as a team. Mind you, I don't watch or pay much attention to sports in general, but from what little I see/hear on both versions of basketball, I find that to be a pretty good analogy.

What few 3e games I played, it was all about the superstars (especially the clerics and wizards), while 4e is more about the team effort. Which I see as a good thing

 

[Pbartender]

Granted we've only played one real session of 4e in my main group, but we seem to be getting there, especially due to SWAT-mindset in our SWSE game and that we've an ex-military guy as one of the players who rolled a Dwarf Warlord for his PC.

Yeah, it's pretty much the same here... My players knwo that SWAT tactics work well, but they're still unlearning some habits from 3E.

As the D&D DM put it, 3e was more like NBA basketball where it's more about the individual superstar while 4e is more akin to college basketball where they play as a team. Mind you, I don't watch or pay much attention to sports in general, but from what little I see/hear on both versions of basketball, I find that to be a pretty good analogy.

What few 3e games I played, it was all about the superstars (especially the clerics and wizards), while 4e is more about the team effort. Which I see as a good thing

I'll tell you a little secret... As we were winding down our 3E campaigns in preparation for 4E, I took guilty pleasure in taking second-string classes and making "superstar" characters out of them. It was one of the few things that kept the game interesting for me.

 

[xechnao]

Each option is no big deal. I mean, it will make no difference eventually. Why?

Because "evolutionary stable strategy" is in our blood.

Check out this cool concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy

Ironically, for some people the game is about fantasy and in fantasy ecologic things like "inclusive fitness"* may not apply. Pantheons are a reality and a human may want to help a dwarf more than another human for example due to divine reasons. But we do play as humans and the tactical invol we are talking about here refer to our human brains.

*another biologic term. Check out in wikipedia if you want.